Books like The Football Factory — picked by fans

Although not from a working-class background himself, a young George Orwell set out to discover and report on the conditions of working-class lives in Paris and London during the early part of the 20th Century.

I love this book because, although written nearly a hundred years ago, it remains vitally resonant today. Orwell left the relative safety of middle-class suburbia and went on the road, working in Parisian restaurants as a dishwasher and joining the massed ranks of homeless tramps in the UK, even venturing down to Kent to join the ‘Hop-Pickers.’

This is a classic novel about working-class lives in America in the 1950s & 60s.

I love this book because the author, Charles Bukowski, somehow manages to make the mundane and often monotonous life of an American postal worker interesting to the reader. This is no mean feat, and to top this off, the novel is laugh-out-loud funny. There’s booze, women, sex, and hangovers, and also the dreaded Soup.

Buy a copy and find out for yourselves. 

I loved this book because it describes what life was like in the East End of London in the early Edwardian era.

Hailing from the East End of London myself, this first-hand account of the life of the poor particularly resonated, but it is a great read no matter what your background. A young Jack London wrote this first-hand account by living in the East End for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets.

The conditions he experienced and wrote about were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor.

Another classic novel about ordinary working-class Americans. This time, it is set in the 1970s and 80s.

Hating Olivia is a brutal love-hate relationship between two people seemingly hell-bent on destroying each other. This is the first of Safranko’s Max Zajack novels and is arguably the best. Zajack meanders from one dead-end job to another whilst battling it out with his lover, the eponymous Olivia, in a series of New York apartments.

I loved it from page one, it’s descriptions of working and socialising in the Big Apple, are devastatingly authentic, and it’s obvious the author has lived this life for real!

I found this autobiography compelling but upsetting. It is not for the faint-hearted, as it’s a blunt reminder of the kind of brutal racism that pioneering Black footballers faced. In the early 1980s, Paul Canoville became the first Black footballer to play for Chelsea. Yet, he faced horrific racist hostility from sections of his own club’s supporters, which is detailed graphically here, as is its impact on Canoville.

The book, therefore, makes for grim and bleak reading in places but is all the more important for that.

Women’s experiences of football have been under-researched, making this collection of essays all the more significant. The recent explosion in the popularity of women’s football sometimes masks the fact that women have been playing the game for many decades–it’s just that the (male) world has finally caught up with how good they are at it.

This multifaceted book, which contains chapters written solely by women, is a sometimes amusing and often insightful take on the women’s game and women’s involvement in all aspects of football. It’s also written with a warmth that I really like and an intelligence sharper than a defense-splitting Lauren Hemp pass.

Written by soccer superstar, Mia Hamm, this book shows her as a young girl and how she learned to deal with disappointment while learning the sport with her brothers and sisters. She loved being praised when she did well but she became angry and quit when she missed goals. There was a consequence – when she returned to play, she wasn’t welcomed back because “winners never quit.”

There is so much to love about this book as it shows a phenomenal athlete as a girl and the origins of her love of soccer. Also, difficult emotions that children experience are explored (without being preachy) as the young Mia learns a valuable lesson. The illustrations are adorable!

While familiar with the infamous 2015 FIFA scandal, I was quickly captivated by the depth of storytelling and new details about the inner workings of one of the most powerful sports organizations in the world. The narrative unfolded like a novel, vividly describing the locations and powerful people behind the schemes that led to Qatar surprisingly being awarded the World Cup and FIFA's descent into deep corruption that dismantled the organization.

The authors painted scenes that allowed readers to imagine the actual interactions and decisions in the true story of deceit, hypocrisy, bribery, and more. Secrets and lies are unveiled in ways that make it clear how greed and disregard for ethics can escalate to such disastrous levels.

I found revelations about England’s spy network and the Sheikhs who rule the Persian Gulf entertaining. This is a compelling read that proves that even if you think you know the story… show more.

I found this an enlightening read about an issue that I thought I knew well. Football has made significant progress in highlighting and tackling bigotry and discrimination in the game over the last 30 years or so.

However, this edited volume reminds us that there is still a long way to go. It’s an academic work that contains chapters covering many aspects of hate crime and how they manifest themselves on matchdays, in the boardroom, and online.

I learned a lot from this volume, and I feel it should be compulsory reading for anyone responsible for running the contemporary game.

This is a novel about two Black British boys, eight-year-old Frankie and Shay, who are football-mad best friends, excited to be taking part in the football trials for All Cultures United, the best football team for miles, in the summer holidays. What I love about this novel is its depiction of loving family life; the realistic, believable portrayal of the boys by the writer; the exuberant love the boys have for football and seeing them go for their dreams. You don’t have to be into football to enjoy the book. A fun read.